The international outbreak of mpox (monkeypox) in 2022 incited global health concerns and underscored the need for an innovative vaccine. However, little is known about potential vaccine targets within the causative orthopoxvirus, mpox virus.

Dr. Emily Rundlet will explore the structure and function of potential mpox vaccine targets in Dr. Jason McLellan’s lab at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Rundlet will structurally characterize antigen complexes using cryo-EM and X-ray crystallography, which will enable her to probe their function in the viral lifecycle and design vaccine candidates. In sum, Dr. Rundlet’s work is expected to provide valuable insights into mpox biology and pave the way for future mpox vaccines.

Dr. Rundlet developed her expertise in structural biology in Dr. Scott Blanchard’s lab at Weill Cornell Medicine. During her graduate studies, Dr. Rundlet used cryo-EM and single-molecule FRET assays to make important discoveries about protein translation. With these methods, Dr. Rundlet elucidated how the ribosome initiates movement of tRNAs during protein synthesis and demonstrated that mRNA decoding by ribosomes is kinetically and structurally different in humans and bacteria. Now Dr. Rundlet is using her expertise to uncover the structural secrets of orthopoxviruses to guide vaccine design and prevent future outbreaks.